


Black Wings in the Cold

by lammermoorian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Skyrim Fusion, Gen, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Tertiary characters making appearances as Stormcloak rebels, wincest if you want; gen if you don't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lammermoorian/pseuds/lammermoorian
Summary: Out in the wilderness, in the middle of his father's war, Dean comes face to face with a living legend.*SPN/Skyrim fusion





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm here to fill the incredibly tiny niche of SPN/video game crossovers
> 
> Standard aesthetics apply
> 
> Dedicated to tumblr user holydarkhallelujah <3 Happy birthday Anders!

Another freezing night.

Despite his father’s blood, Dean is no Nord - he’s a Breton by nurture, if not nature, and even the harshest snows of Wayrest are laughable compared to the mildest of Skyrim winters. At least the Stormcloaks are good company. If there are two things the Nords can do, aside from making bitter, grainy ale and stubbornly fighting the elements, it’s building campfires and talking about themselves. They aren’t so perfectly regimented as the Imperial Legion; Ulfric’s rebellion is ragtag, forces cobbled together from across the province. Dean has seen Nords, Bretons, Redguards, and even a handful of Imperial defectors donning Stormcloak colors, with as many varied histories. Benny is one of those defectors, pale and stocky and harboring a deep hatred for Cyrodiil, and yet despite spending his entire life in the sunniest, most temperate climates in Tamriel, he is still handling the cold better than Dean.

“So,” says Benny, pouring Dean another mug of ale. "After that, I decided to stay with the Thieves' Guild. I robbed, burgled, and heisted my way through Skyrim for years, and I would have continued to do so, if the Thalmor hadn't killed my partner." He drinks from his own tankard, downing it all in one smooth motion. "Ty was a good kid, an even better thief. He could have fenced you the emperor's crown itself, if it had ever fallen into his hands. He didn't deserve to go the way he did." He grimaces, jaw clenching. "By the Nine, if I ever catch the Imperial bastard who killed him, he will be begging for something as sweet as death."

"Cheers," Dean mutters, swigging the ale with some reluctance. What he wouldn't do for Daggerfall's famous spiced wine right now.

"The very next day I caught a carriage to Windhelm, joined up with the rebellion." He glances over at Bela across the way, who tosses a twig into the flame. “What about you? How’d you end up here?”

Bela, Dean thinks, would be very pretty, if she weren't a soldier. In another life, he would have fallen in love with her on sight. Unfortunate that there is no room for romance in wartime. She shrugs. “My cousin disappeared one night. Some say the Thalmor grabbed him. Wasn’t long until I found myself under Ulfric’s banner.” Dean nods, sympathetic. Disappearing family is something he can understand. “How about you?” She pins him with her gaze, eyes haunted and far away.

Pursing his lips, Dean considers. It certainly isn't fair of him to remain silent, while his fellow Stormcloaks bare their souls to him. And yet. “Grew up in Wayrest, with my father and brother. We were farmers.” 

“You’re a Breton?” she asks, one eyebrow cocked.

Dean shakes his head. “Thought I was. My father fought under Ulfric in the Markarth Incident. When the Imperials returned to clear out the city, he ran before he could be arrested, settled in High Rock and married a nice Breton girl. The rockjoint took him last year, but not before he gave me his journal.” John Winchester died in a foreign land, with nothing but a Nordic dagger to remind him of who his ancestors were. It melted on the pyre like any old metal.

"Your mother?"

He closes his eyes against the heat of the flame. "Dead."

“And your brother?” asks Benny, gently.

Dean scowls, shivers as a chill wind blows from the North. “Sam left us a long time ago.” He drinks, long and bitter, but any warmth the drink could offer him has long since fled. "I'm going to bed," he grunts, joints cracking as he stands, then stalks off to his tent, leaving heavy footprints in the falling snow. 

The voices of his fellow men, whispers on the breeze follow him into sleep, and he greedily latches onto them. Talk of lovers in ports long gone, grand feasts in the Jarls' halls, and unbelievable feats of battle block his ears, stop his thoughts from wandering too far from the path. His helmet, brittle steel, gleams in the moonlight streaming through the opening of his tent, as bright as any lantern or torch, cold and hard and the exact opposite of everything that left Dean behind.

"Heard they're reforming the Dawnguard," a soldier says, faint and factual. 

"The Dawnguard?"

"Vampire hunters or something, in the old fort near Riften. Might consider joining up myself, after the war."

* * *

His sleep is dark, dreamless, and deep - until a thunderous roar wrenches him awake.

Scrambling from his bedroll, legs tangled in furs and still half-asleep, the echoing screams and shrieks of his fellow soldiers can only mean one thing - Imperial ambush. He gropes around for his hammer, heart pounding and palms sweating at its absence, before he remembers that he gave it to the Quartermaster for repairs. "Blast!" he mutters, swiping a dagger from his knapsack.

He stumbles out into the night, the full moon and the flames illuminating the darkness, but all that Dean can see is a living nightmare. 

"DRAGON!"

The beast is enormous, green and leathery, huge wings carving swathes of blackness across the night sky. Perched on the cliff side, its talons glint viciously, as wickedly sharp as a hundred daggers - its teeth even moreso. Its gaping maw opens, and from the depths comes a bone-rattling roar, filling the air with a biting and evil chill. It launches itself into the air, triumphant, awesome, dreadful, and unleashes a gout of flame into the trees. They burn, swiftly and without mercy, a circle of death. 

"Divines," someone gasps, "help us!" 

His feet are rooted to the ground, his legs cannot move. 

"We need water!" barks the commander. "Put that damn fire out!" 

Heart frozen in fear, blood stilled in his veins, Dean can only stare in awe and horror. He'd heard the rumors - they all have, and laughed at them all, rumors of dragons over Whiterun, and draugr roaming the lands, but this is - this is insanity. This is no rumor. This is no legend. 

Benny bumps him, arms struggling around a heavy, sloshing bucket. "Dean!" he urges, "let's move!" 

The dragon circles, a malevolent storm, and dives, its razor teeth headed straight for them all, its mouth glowing white hot, and suddenly Dean's feet move again, clambering back, but he cannot tear his eyes away from death, his death, his end, and he never apologized for all the things he said when Sam left, and then a voice - a human voice - in the wilderness cries, " _Fus!_ "

With the force of a gale, Dean is pushed back, flung up against the cliff face, and the dragon's claws scrape the earth where he had just been standing. Furious, it turns, searching for the source which just stole its prey from it. "What in the hell was that?" he gasps, heart thudding back to life. 

"Dean!" Benny scrambles down beside him, cuirass scorched and eyes wild. "Are you alright?"

"That was," he stutters, spitting dirt, "that was - "

"A fucking dragon, I know!"

"No!" he pushes Benny away, pulling himself upright with the cliff wall, "The voice!"

Benny frowns. "What voice?"

Stumbling down the hill, ignoring his friend's bewilderment, he makes the second most stupid decision of his life, and follows the dragon's shadow. The voice, the - the thing that pushed him - that was a human. He had to see. He had to know. 

He scrabbles up to the crest of the hill, where he knows there is a clearing on the other side - nice and flat, perfect for a dragon to land - and when he pokes his head over, there it is. Grounded, riddled with arrows, but no less menacing, it snarls at a figure before it, the heat from its breath melting the snow. The human, for even at this distance, Dean can see that they are a human, levels their bow at it, firing off arrow after arrow as fast as they can reload. With one final, heroic shot through its open mouth, the dragon convulses, wings spread and mouth open in a silent roar, then collapses, as smooth and as graceful as a bard's song. 

The human turns to look at him, then, and Dean's heart lurches against his ribcage. It's been years, and he's covered in a layer of dust and road dirt, but Dean would know him anywhere. 

Slowly, like he would approach a wild animal, he climbs down the side of the hill, dagger in his right hand. The man does not run, but stands his ground, bright eyes piercing him through to the core of his soul, just as they used to. 

The shoulders are broader, the hair longer, but his eyes are still the same. "Sammy?"

He shudders at the mention of his name. 

"Sam," Dean breathes, "come here. C'mon." Step by step, he inches closer. Sam's clothes are filthy, road worn and unraveling, much like their owner. He's gaunt, too little muscle stretched over too much bone, skin pale and flushed at turns, and he shakes like a leaf on the wind, hair wet from snow. "Let's - " Dean's throat is full, heart fit to burst, stomach in knots and tears over the guarded look in his little brother's eyes, the haunted fear that should never, ever be directed at someone who loves him, "let's get you cleaned up, okay? Sammy?" 

Sam opens his mouth, as if to answer, and blood comes pouring out. 

"Soldier!" From over the hill, Istar Cairn-Breaker, Dean's commander, comes striding down with the Stormcloak on his heels, greatsword drawn and poised to attack. "What in all the hells - "

"Stop!" As easy as breathing, Dean leaps in front of him, left hand outstretched. The heat of Sam's body bleeds through his armor, dangerously high. "He's my brother!"

He senses it before it happens. With a quiet sigh, Sam crumples to the ground. Swift as a fox, Dean is there, catching him before he hits his head. Sam is burning, sweat soaking his hair and tunic, glassy eyes unfocused. His breathing is ragged, lips trembling. "D-" he coughs, harsh and shallow, "D-"

"Healing potion," Dean mumbles.

"What?"

"Get me a healing potion!" 

Seconds, minutes, hours later - Dean cannot tell - somebody hands him a red bottle. He rips out the cork with his teeth, gently tipping the bottle into Sam's slack mouth. 

Then the air grows sharp. There's a smell, like the smell of lightning about to strike. "Look!" gasps a soldier. With a great effort, Dean tears his eyes away to see that the corpse of the dragon is burning. No - smoldering, pulsing like a beating heart, the flesh and blood melts away, until all that is left is bone. A great, warm light courses forth, wrapping them all in the smell of a summer evening, whipping their hair and tearing at their clothes. It narrows, focuses, then with the whistle of an arrow, shoots into his brother's heart. He gasps, writhing like the dragon, then stills. His fever has risen even further, breath steaming in the cold air. 

"Ysgramor's beard," someone swears.

"Did you see that?"

Bela sneaks up on him. She kneels down beside him, and Dean starts, almost jarring Sam's head. "Dean," she says, softly, "look." 

Beneath Sam's body, the snow has melted.

"Dean," he whispers, hand grasping for his brother's. "Izzat you?" The potion has healed his throat somewhat, but he still sounds as though he's been screaming. 

"I'm here, little brother," says Dean, smoothing his hair back. "I'm here."

The whispers behind him grow stronger. "What was that?"

"It's just like in the legends!"

"Dean," Bela murmurs, drawing him out of the world. "What is this?"

All he can do is shake his head, jaw working soundlessly. "He was supposed to be at school," says Dean, as helpless as he was as a child. "Sammy," he sighs, throat tight, "what the hell happened to you?"

"H-Helgen," Sam murmurs, voice stronger. "There was the dragon. The world-eater -  _feyn do jun_ \- he shouted the sky apart, the Greyb-beards, they named me  _Dovahkiin_ , he -  _kruziik vokun staadnau_ \- " Blunt fingers claw at his brow, mouth frozen in a pained snarl, "my head!" 

"Sammy - "

" _Naal ok zin los vahriin_ , his voice is in my head, he raises them from the dead," drops spatter Sam's face, and Dean realizes that he is weeping, "he calls to me, _s_ _ahrot thu'um,_ he calls to me and he won't let me sleep. Dean," he begs, "he won't let me sleep."

"It's okay," Dean whispers, cradling his burning face, "I'm here. I'm here."

Sam shakes his head. "You can't," his tears mingle with blood, but his eyes shine bright, twin fires burning him from the inside out. "You can't."

"Come on," Bela murmurs, sliding her hands under Sam's shoulders. "Let's get him to your tent." 

Together, bracing him between them, they limp back towards camp, Sam's heart beating like a hummingbird, and just as fragile in Dean's arms. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still suck at endings. 
> 
> A little later than I planned, but I got a PS4 and I can't stop messing with it. So pretty!! SPN/Shadow of the Colossus fusion, anybody????

They’ve been singing that stupid song all damn day. Dean would strangle them, if he weren’t fairly certain that nothing short of yet another dragon attack would wake his brother from his corpse-like sleep, lying limp on his bedroll as Dean watches from a chair, and even of that, Dean cannot be sure.

Sam has slept well into the evening. It’s been near an entire day since he appeared, slayed the dragon - slayed a dragon! Dean’s little brother, a dragonslayer! - and subsequently passed out cold in Dean and Bela’s grasp, leaving them to haul his heavy body up the hill and into Dean’s tent. And yes, despite his road-skinny physique, the little bastard was quite, quite heavy. The kid had gone and grown up on him; last Dean ever saw of his brother, Sam had been a scrawny, but fiery boy, with hands he hadn’t quite grown into yet, and a sullenness that neither Dean nor his father ever quite knew from where it had come. His back had been thin, then, as he walked out the door, pack almost too large for his shoulders. Just another of the many differences that Dean cannot reconcile with his memories.

“ _Our hero, our hero claims a warrior’s heart!_ ” The soldiers carouse, Benny’s voice loud and clear above the din. “ _I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes!_ ”

With a gasp, and a wheeze, Sam bolts upright, eyes wide and quick, and slaps a hand over his mouth, folding in on himself and struggling not to heave. “Sam?” Dean asks, a hand cautiously outstretched.

Hunched over, fearful and feral-looking, his gaze snaps to Dean, one hand automatically grasping at the empty space by his hip, and it is several moments before he allows himself to relax, eyes beginning to clear. “Dean,” he whispers, full of wonder. “I thought I dreamt you.” His voice is soft, rusty from what Dean can only suspect is disuse, yet he no longer sounds as though he has been guzzling road grit.

Dean wants to be patient with him. Truly. It has always been difficult, however, for him to mask the years of bitterness and pain, particularly when the object of said pain deigns to appear from nowhere. “What the hell are you doing here?” he says, anger overwhelming the care and worry that blossomed in his heart when he saw his brother again. “You’re a long way from Winterhold.”

He starts, ever so slightly, the tension leaching out of him until Sam seems to fold into himself. “I’m a little lost,” he yields, hand uncurling, “I don’t - I don’t know where I am.”

Dean blinks, taken aback. Sam doesn’t know where he is? The best tracker of the Winchester family, lost? And in Skyrim, no less, where the roads are so pathetically easy to follow? “You don’t have a map?”

Eyes downcast, Sam shrugs. “I needed a fire a few weeks ago.”

He tries to imagine Sam a few weeks ago, wandering around in the mountains, cold and hungry and desperate enough to use his map for kindling, and his stomach rolls. “Well, you’re in Haafingar, now,” he says, “a few miles north of Dragon Bridge.”

“Dragon Bridge.” He closes his eyes, head dropping with something resembling relief. “That’s good.”

And despite his best efforts, despite how his head is railing against the urges of his heart, he can’t let this go - can’t let Sam leave - without knowing that he hasn’t gotten himself into some deep trouble, at least not without Dean there to pluck him out of the fire. “Sammy, what the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the College, not traipsing about the wilderness!”

Sam levels him with a familiar, scornful look. “And you’re supposed to be in High Rock. You’re a Stormcloak now?” He sneers, voice laced with surprisingly authentic malice. “Since when have you cared about anything outside of Wayrest?”

“Since I learned our father was a Nord. He was born here, Sam, he fought in Markarth, he - “

“I know. I got your letter.”

All at once, like the force that pushed him from harm’s way last night, the anger and hurt comes rushing back, rising hot in his face, cold in his hands. “You got my letter but you couldn’t bother to come home for the funeral?”

That stops Sam where he is, the shaking lines of his hands stilling for just a moment as he accepts the affront without objection. It narrows him, draws him in on himself and makes himself smaller, shielding himself from any further blows Dean may make. Dean can see the apology in his closed eyes, the tension in his shoulders, and he simply does not want to hear it.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. This war - our father’s war - is the only thing that matters, now. I’ve inherited it, and I intend to see it through to the end.”

“This war?” Sam scoffs, that familiar spite rising from familiar depths. “Dean, this war is nothing. There are things far, far worse out there than Tullius and his armies, things you wouldn’t - “ he cuts himself off with a shudder, eyes fluttering closed. “Things you couldn’t believe, even if I told you.”

Now this, this is Sam. Sullen, stubborn, and surly, too damn big for his britches, adamant that he can handle whatever the Divines can throw at him, bear the entire world on his shoulders, unencumbered and unburdened with anyone’s help, and Dean loves him for it. He always has. This is his closest friend, his hunting partner, his brother in arms and blood and Dean wonders how he could ever have thought that his person was anybody but his sharp, thorny, self-willed little brother. “You can tell me anything,” he says, coming down to sit beside him. “You always could, remember?”

Perhaps appealing to their past is something of a dirty trick - Dean has guilted him enough over leaving, he decides then and there - but, historically, Sam never could resist his wheedling for very long. “It’s - it’s crazy,” Sam says, head heavy and eyes downcast.

“Crazier than you showing up in the middle of the night in the asshole of Skyrim to kill a dragon?” Without thinking, almost, he reaches out, and places a hand on Sam’s shoulder, Sam nearly crumbling under the weight of it. “Tell me what happened,” Dean says, imploring. “Let me help you.”

“I,” Sam licks his lips, but doesn’t look up. “I was in Falkreath,” he says, finally, after a moment. “I was running an errand for my master, Tollfdir, I was… I don’t even remember.” He shakes his head, something like a chuckle, but far too morose, escaping his lips. “I was crossing the border, was going to catch a carriage from Ivarstead, and - we got caught up, in an Imperial ambush. They - they took us to Helgen, they were going to execute me, and they wouldn’t listen no matter how many times I told them I wasn’t a rebel, but - “ He shudders, then, hands clenching on the thin fabric of his trousers, and Dean will kill the Imperial scum who thought they could lay a hand on his brother. “But, before they could… before they killed me, the dragon attacked.”

“The dragon? The one from last night?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “ _The_ dragon. The world-eater.” Sam fixes him with wild, desperate eyes, and he whispers, “Alduin.”

The earth doesn’t shake, the skies do not open up and strike them down, yet Dean feels an imperceptible chill that has nothing to do with the winter and all to do with the fear in Sam’s voice.

“I managed to escape, but, Dean - he destroyed the entire city, he - he shouted walls to pieces, ripped down the towers with only his voice - “ He gasps, makes a wild grab for Dean’s hand, nearly crushing his fingers with an iron grip, “I ran - I don’t even know for how long - until I reached Whiterun, where - there was another dragon.”

 _Three damn dragons_. The one was bad enough, but three?

There’s a howling kind of madness in his eyes, now, briming just beneath the surface, as Sam shivers, deep and profound. “I killed it, and something - something happened, to me, I - I don’t know how to - so they said I should go to High Hrothgar, to the Greybeards, and I did, but - but everywhere I go, Dean,” he moves up on his knees, dread and horror lending him the strength to rise, to run, “he follows me. He follows, he sends his armies after me, and I - “ he chokes, shoulders shaking, “I don’t know what to do - “

Dean does. He is a big brother after all.

Releasing his hands from Sam’s grip, he holds his brother’s shoulders, steadying his shakes and looking him in the eye. “Where were you headed when I found you?” he asks, softly, bringing Sam down from the waking nightmare he lives in.

Sam swallows. “There’s a story - an old legend the Blades used to tell, of a weapon that can kill anything.”

Usually, Dean wouldn’t put stock in such stories. Then again, the dragons used to be stories, too. “And where would this weapon be?”

“No one knows. It’s been lost for centuries.” He sighs, exactly the way he used to when he had bad news. “But there’s an old fort that used to belong to the Blades, just north of Solitude, maybe they - ”

“Solitude? Are you crazy? That’s the heart of Imperial territory! Sammy," he cups his brother's face, fingers on the neck that was nearly severed by some Imperial bastard, Dean can see it now, can see the soldier's face broken and blood-spattered as Dean smashes in their fucking face for daring to lay a hand on Dean's brother, "they will kill you on sight!”

“I don’t care," says Sam, shoulders set. "This is the only way to defeat him.”

Historically, Dean doesn't jump in to situations without mulling them over. Rashness, impulsivity - those are qualities he would use to describe his brother, not him. Still, despite all that, Dean has made two rash decisions during the course of his young life so far. The first, when he decided to let Sam walk out the door without chasing him down and dragging him back home feet first. The second, when he chose to join a foreign army, as though that would fill the hole in his heart. It's only fitting that his third revolves around Sam as well. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t! Even I know what Ulfric does to deserters.” And Dean does. The Stormcloaks are so ragged, stretched so thin, that Ulfric and his lieutenants would rather kill a good soldier than let them live in peace, on the slim chance that they turn traitor.

He takes Sam's hands in his own. "Forget what I said," he murmurs, and he can only hope Sam understands his full meaning. "If what you say is true - then fuck this war. Fuck Ulfric Stormcloack, and fuck the empire. This fight,"  _your mission, your safety_ , "is far more important to me."

Sam relents, nodding glumly. Or perhaps he surrenders, simply too exhausted to fight Dean on this. But he does say "thank you," and something in Dean's heart comes alive at it. 

 


End file.
